Your name has been added to the wait list for this event. The event organiser will contact you through your email address once there are available seats / slots.

This event has no dates available for booking. Please contact the event organiser.

FRED SMITH 'The Dust of Uruzgan' Book Tour at Kindlehill

FRED SMITH 'The Dust of Uruzgan' Book Tour at Kindlehill

Fusion Boutique PresentsFRED SMITH 'The Dust Of Uruzgan' Book Tour

Concert and stories from his memoir accompanied by visual projectionsto be held at the Kindlehill School Performance Space.

Friday 19th May 2017 7:30pm. Doors Open 6:45pm.

Fred Smith returned from two years working alongside Australian troops in southern Afghanistan to release the remarkable Dust of Uruzgan album. Now he has written a book revealing the back stories to the songs from the album and in so doing offers a humorous, sympathetic and comprehensive account of what was going on in this obscure little province in the middle of a difficult war.

Described as “a triumph of poetic journalism” and “finely observed snapshots of a harsh, sad and funny reality”, he weaves song and story to offer what 15 years of news reports failed to convey: an understanding of what 20,000 soldiers and a handful of our diplomats were doing over there in the dust of Uruzgan.

Fred’s songs and stories will be accompanied by projections of some stunning photos from Afghanistan.

‘I think a real strength of Fred's music and the way he writes his songs is that he's actually experienced a lot of what he's writing about. He's actually walked in the same footsteps of those soldiers he's writing about . . . He ate, he slept, he bathed, he worked, he lived with them and when soldiers died, he mourned with them.’ - Colonel Jason Blain for Australian Story

“Fred Smith draws as convincing a picture as we will ever have of the tragedy, hope, oddness and courage of Australia’s Uruzgan enterprise… an astonishingly vibrant piece of reportage from the heart of our longest war.” - Hugh Riminton, Political Editor, Channel 10

Fred Smith has emerged as one of Australia’s most fascinating artists. He has spent the last twenty years all over the joint: working on Australian stabilisation missions in Afghanistan and the South Pacific, touring in America and travelling the Australian festival circuit. He is the subject of the film Bougainville Sky about his time in the war-torn islands of the South Pacific where his work as a musician, peace monitor and radio broadcaster contributed to the success of the world’s first unarmed peace keeping force.
Fred was the first Australian diplomat to be posted to Uruzgan in July of 2009, and the last to leave in 2013. His job was to comprehend the complex web of tribal and patronage networks that made things tick. He came to see the province through Afghan eyes, as well as those of the soldiers he worked with. He wrote a powerful collection of songs about the realities of life for soldiers and civilians, recently released on a highly acclaimed album called Dust of Uruzgan. The title track was recently covered by Lee Kernaghan on his top selling Spirit of the ANZAC’s album.
Fred has put out about eight CD’s, including collaborations with Liz Frenchman and the Spooky Men’s Chorale. Two of these won National Film and Sound Archives Awards. At the 2015 Australian Political Studies Association Annual Awards, he won the Conference Organisers Award for his unusual grassroots approach to explaining Australia’s involvement in stabilisation operations in Afghanistan and the South Pacific to the public.